DEXTER: Producers & Cast Preview Impact Of Biggest Game-Changer Yet

The producers and cast of Showtime’s Dexterfaced the press at Monday’s Television Critic’s Association. Following the revelatory events at the end of last season in which Debs discovered the truth about her brother/potential lover’s lust for blood, what does the new season have in store for blood-splattered pair?

Reflecting on the ‘predictability’ of the Travis/Gellar arc — some viewers figured that Gellar was dead before it was revealed and that he was only appearing in the fractured mind of Travis — executive producer Scott Buck said it was never designed to be a “big reveal”:

“If we were to have such a secret to be revealed later in the season, we’d be a lot more careful about it.”

Michael C. Hall described the development at the end of last season as the most game-changing yet and suggests it has brought the show’s end a little closer:

“[It’s the] most fundamentally game-changing development since we started telling this story. Deb finding out does make an end game feel a little more palpable and imminent. The plan is to do this season and a final eighth season to tell the story of the two of them negotiating their relationship in this new landscape.”

Jennifer Carpenter described the season premiere’s emotionally-charged opening scene:

“It was the strangest, scariest seduction scene, in a weird way. It was also the first time I felt [Deb’s] power as a lieutenant. I felt as weak and as powerful as I’ve ever been — as an actor and as a character.”

“We were fresh off a very long, very generous hiatus, and that was the first scene that we shot. It was very hard. But once Michael [C. Hall] and I shook the dust off in rehearsals and everything, it was so easy. I didn’t have to manipulate anything; it was all right there.”

As for whether Dexter could possibly kill the person closest to him, as intimated in the recent teasers, Buck said:

“Dexter is a serial killer, the thought has to at least have crossed his mind that that would be an easy solution to this problem. There is no easy solution to being in this circumstance.”

Added EP Sara Colleton:

“We acknowledge that a dark and dangerous and treacherous path has opened up for Deb and we’re going to see her walk that.”